


A Rainbow With All of the Colors

by charming_barnes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Thor/Bruce Banner, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-04-11 23:44:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charming_barnes/pseuds/charming_barnes
Summary: Bucky Barnes is the last of his friends to meet his soulmate. He's pretty much resigned to living in black and white when he meets Steve Rogers and the world explodes into color. Except, they're missing a third of the color spectrum. Um, okay. They can figure this out, right?





	1. Chapter 1

Bucky Barnes was starting to doubt that he would ever see anything other than black and white. Almost all of his friends had met their soulmates already, and it was getting a little frustrating to be the only one who couldn’t see the colors they would excitedly point out. It was bad enough dealing with the new couples; add in a full color spectrum they couldn’t see before and Bucky’s friends were becoming almost insufferable. 

Whatever. He doesn’t  _ need _ to see in color, he’s perfectly capable in black and white, thank you very much. Besides, it just can’t be as amazing as they make it out to be. 

At least, that’s what he thought. 

It started innocently enough, with Bucky stepping into a grocery store to grab some ice cream. He hadn’t even changed out of his pajama pants since a) it was past midnight and b) he literally needed one thing. Totally not worth putting actual pants on for. He found the ice cream he wanted—cookie dough, obviously—and triumphantly grabbed one out of the freezer. Still gazing lovingly at the carton, he turned around and promptly ran into someone else looking for ice cream. 

“Oh, sorry,” he said, barely glancing up at the stranger. 

“No, you’re okay,” the man said, with a small smile that Bucky didn’t even see. He brushed the whole thing off and continued to the check-out so he could get home and watch more of his show. He had waited months for  _ Good Omens _ and he would not be distracted for anything other than a quick trip to the store for more ice cream. 

Unsurprisingly, there was only one check-out open, since it was somewhere around one in the morning. Surprisingly, however, there was a line. 

Bucky looked over the terrible magazines as he waited his turn, wondering why exactly these people were grocery shopping so late at night. He knew  _ he _ had a reason, but really? Why does anyone else need to be out this late?

As he was reading the cover of a magazine he was pretty sure was making up every single one of their headlines, a hand reached in front of him to grab a divider off the belt. 

He glanced over and realized it was the same man he had stumbled into in the ice cream aisle. 

The man looked up too, and before Bucky could look away, his eyes were caught by the stranger’s, and the world exploded into color. 

Well, kind of, but we'll get to that in a minute. 

“You- your eyes are  _ blue _ ,” Bucky said. The stranger—well, not really a stranger, right? That’s Bucky’s soulmate—continued to stare at him with wide (very blue, apparently) eyes while Bucky looked around, wanting to see everything he could. 

For the first time, the apples the lady in front of him was buying were red, the ice cream container he grabbed was purple, and the boxes of microwave popcorn across the aisle were blue. 

But as he glanced around, Bucky’s heart stopped. Everything else was black and white. All he could see were shades of blue and red. 

Um, what?

He turned back to the stranger, who held out a hand. 

“Steve Rogers,” he said as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. A sunshine smile was starting to spread across his face. “Uh, I guess you’re my soulmate.”

“Bucky Barnes,” Bucky replied. “And, yeah, I guess so, but have you looked around yet?”

Steve dragged his eyes from Bucky to look around the store. His eyebrows came together and his smile dimmed as he turned back to Bucky. 

“Can you see yellows? Or like, orange or green?” he asked. 

“No,” Bucky said. “I am kinda glad it’s not just me, though.”

By this time, the line had moved enough that Bucky should be buying his ice cream. He forced himself to pay attention, but only half listened as the cashier cooed at the two of them and fondly remembered the moment she met her own soulmate. Bucky paid and then waited for Steve to buy his own dessert. 

“So, uh, do you wanna come to my place or something?” Bucky asked as they walked through the parking lot. “We can eat ice cream and try and figure out what’s happening. I won’t do anything weird, I promise.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Steve said. Bucky gave him his address and they left, having parked at opposite ends of the lot. 

***

In the privacy of his own car, Bucky could freak out a little. Finding your soulmate was supposed to be the best moment of your life, but now there might be something wrong with Bucky and it’s not like he could ask anyone about it. Soulmate relationships were supposed to be perfect. Like, that’s the whole point of them, right?

He let out a breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Maybe he should just talk to Steve before he freaks out too badly. 

Steve pulled into Bucky’s driveway just a minute after he got home. They nervously smiled at each other as Bucky unlocked the door and led the way to the living room. 

“I’m so sorry about the mess,” he said, trying to clean up a little, “I wasn’t really expecting a guest.”

He paused, setting a throw pillow upright on the couch. 

“Is this pillow  _ actually  _ light gray or is it yellow or something and I just can’t see it?”

“I… don’t know,” Steve said, staring hard at it as if he could figure it out just by looking at it. 

“Right. Okay, whatever. So,” Bucky said. “What in the actual hell is going on?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure we’re soulmates,” Steve said. “But I have no idea about the rest of it.”

“You know what, I’m gonna Google it,” Bucky said in a moment of realization that they lived in the time of The Internet™. He opened an incognito tab and searched ‘half colorblind soulmate.’ There was a disappointing number of results, but he clicked on the first link. He closed it again a few seconds later and clicked the next few links with similar results. “So, basically, this is not a common thing.”

“Can I borrow a spoon?” Steve asked. “I need ice cream for this conversation.”

“Oh, yeah, good idea.” Bucky grabbed two spoons and they ate in silence for a few minutes as they Googled variations of the same question. 

Finding nothing, Bucky locked his phone and looked up. “Look, I think we should just make the best of this. We must be soulmates, and it can’t be too hard to hide that something’s wrong.”

“You’re right,” Steve said. “I, uh, wow. You’re actually my soulmate. I mean, huh. Hi.”

Now that he wasn’t freaking out, Bucky realized what was actually going on. This is the guy he was going to spend the rest of his life with. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Can we start over? I’m Bucky. Bucky Barnes,” he said, holding out a hand. 

“Steve Rogers,” Steve said. He took Bucky’s hand, shook it, and then just sat there. It took them a minute to realize they were still holding hands before they both sat back with a blush.

“My friends are gonna  _ freak _ ,” Bucky laughed. “I was convinced I didn’t have a soulmate.”

“I would love to meet them,” Steve said. “If we’re really soulmates, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, right?”

“Yeah. Hold on a second,” Bucky said, unlocking his phone. He sent a quick text and waited. Seconds later, nevermind that it was now three in the morning, his phone lit up. “Nat wants to meet you tomorrow. Or, later today, I guess.”

“Sounds good! Oh, I should text Tony,” Steve said. His phone rang not three seconds after he sent his text and Steve shook his head and answered it. “Hey, Tony.” He pulled the phone away from his ear with a grimace when Tony started yelling through the speaker. 

Bucky could only make out a few words, but he clearly caught “finally!” “you’re not joking, right?” and “is he hot??” Steve just sat silently until Tony ran out of breath. 

“Yes, I’m serious. Meet us at the park at one.” He hung up the phone and looked at Bucky. “Sorry, that’s the only way to get him to stop talking. I hope those plans are okay? He’ll be late, so maybe you could see if your friends could meet at two?”

“Natasha says yes,” Bucky said after a minute. 

“Awesome,” Steve said. “I should probably get home so I can get a little sleep.” He stood up and Bucky followed. 

“That’s probably a good idea,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Steve smiled. He stood awkwardly in the doorway like they were 16 years old and headed home from a school dance. Steve quickly leaned over to kiss Bucky on the cheek and then turned and left before either of them could say anything. Bucky put a hand to his cheek and smiled softly. This has been a  _ weird _ night. 


	2. Chapter 2

“He’s great, Nat. I’m sure you’ll love him,” Bucky said. He and Natasha walked side by side from his apartment to the park where they were meeting Steve and his friend. 

“It sounds like you like him, so I guess I will too,” Nat said. “He is your soulmate, after all.”

Bucky smiled. “Yeah, he is.”

As they walked closer to their meeting spot, Bucky spotted Steve standing by himself. He looked gorgeous in the sunlight, almost like a figure in a Monet painting as he stood surrounded by trees, a small lake glittering in the background. Bucky pointed him out to Nat and she turned to look at him, raising her eyebrows. 

“He’s cute,” she said.

“Right?” 

Finally, they were close enough that Steve could hear them, and he looked up from his phone to smile at Bucky. He waved and then turned his attention to Nat.

“You must be Natasha,” he said, holding out a hand for her to shake. “I’m Steve.”

“You can call me Nat,” she said after a minute. Steve smiled and nodded. Bucky looked impressed. Even he didn’t get to call her that immediately.

“Sorry Tony is so late,” Steve said. “I asked him to be here an hour ago.”

“It’s fine,” Nat said. Bucky could see her getting ready to interrogate Steve and cringed. This wouldn’t be fun. “So, Steve, what do you do?”

“I do security at Stark Tech,” Steve said. 

“Do you think you’ll be able to support my best friend?” she asked.

“Nat! I have my own job!” Bucky interrupted, since it was clear Steve wasn’t sure how to answer. 

“He has expensive habits,” Nat said as if Bucky hadn’t spoken. “His favorite food is sushi, and he’s obsessed with some fancy ice cream that I don’t know the name of. Which is also why he has an expensive gym membership.”

Bucky hid his face in his hands. “Nat…”

Steve laughed. “Thanks for the heads up.”

Bucky was trying to get Nat to stop embarrassing him when someone called out Steve’s name. Steve sighed before even looking to see who yelled.

“That would be Tony,” he said, turning around. Walking toward them with an incredulous look on his face and his arms held out wide was The Actual Tony Stark. Okay, sure. 

“Hey, Tony,” Steve said. “Bucky, this is my best friend Tony. Tony, this is Bucky and his best friend Natasha.”

Tony looked at Bucky over blue-tinted sunglasses. “So you’re the soulmate.”

Immediately defensive, Bucky glanced at Steve. “Yep.” 

Tony stared at him for a second before saying “I like him. You can keep him, Steve.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve said. “That was the plan.”

Before anyone could respond, yet another voice called for Steve. He turned, looking like a confused bald eagle, before spotting two familiar faces.

“Hey, Thor, Bruce. What are you guys doing here?” he asked.

“Tony called us,” Bruce explained. “He said that you met your soulmate.”

“Congratulations!” Thor said, wrapping both Steve and Bucky in a hug. He released a smiling Steve and a stunned Bucky to look them both in the face.

“Thor, this is Bucky and his friend Natasha. Bucky, Nat, these are my friends Thor and Bruce. They’re soulmates too,” Steve said. 

“Nice to meet you,” Nat smiled. Bucky was still a little shocked and just smiled a little. Nat and Tony continued to interrogate Steve and Bucky with only a little help from Thor and Bruce. Bucky learned where Steve lived, his favorite band, and that he used to be a tiny little kid before his height skyrocketed in college. At the same time, Tony got Bucky to tell them where he went to school and all about his sister.

Eventually, after several more questions and little facts about Steve that Bucky made an effort to remember, Tony’s phone rang.

“Hey, Pep. Yeah, I’m with Steve; he met his soulmate. Yes, really!” He looked Bucky up and down before continuing, “Yeah, he’s pretty cute. Uh huh. What were you calling about?”

He stepped just far enough away from the group that the others couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore. Steve explained that Pepper was Tony’s soulmate and the CEO of Stark Tech. By the time he was done, Tony was walking back.

“I gotta go,” he said. “Pepper says there’s some kind of emergency at work. It was nice to meet you, though.” He shook Bucky’s and Nat’s hands and waved to the others as he called someone else. 

“We should go too,” Bruce said. “I have errands to run and Thor can’t go grocery shopping by himself.” He grabbed a protesting Thor by the hand and said their goodbyes before they left as well, holding hands all the way.

“I guess that’s my cue,” Nat said. Did they actually  _ plan _ this somehow? Bucky wouldn’t put it past Natasha. She hugged him, shook Steve’s hand, and then they were alone. 

“What just happened?” Steve asked.

“I think Nat coordinated that somehow,” Bucky said.

“So, I guess we could, you know, go on a date sometime? Since we’re soulmates?” Steve said, putting one hand on the back of his neck in a nervous gesture.

Bucky smiled. “Yeah, sounds good. When do you want to do something?”

“How about now?” Steve asked. “Have you had lunch yet?”

“I haven’t,” Bucky said. “You?”

“Nope,” Steve said and held out an arm like he was helping someone up the stairs at the Oscars. Bucky took it and they started walking, discussing where they should go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this one was a little shorter but tbh i think it said what needed to be said. there's going to be a tiny time jump in the next one, but not like too significantly. just to get the whole established relationship thing, you know?


	3. Chapter 3

It was strange how easy Steve fit into Bucky’s life. Like, yeah, they’re soulmates, but that didn’t guarantee that they liked the same things and (eventually) had the same friends but weren’t so codependent that either one felt weird doing something without the other. More often than not, Bucky even forgot that he couldn’t see a full color spectrum. It wasn’t usually an issue, and he and Steve got pretty good at hiding it. Of course, they wished they didn’t need to, but they also weren’t planning on telling anyone. 

After only a few months, Steve and Bucky moved in together. They bought a cute little two bedroom house with a white picket fence and everything was, seemingly, perfect.

Except, maybe it wasn’t. There was a feeling of  _ something _ , something nearly imperceptible but always in his peripheral vision—a physical sense of the missing color spectrum. What it could be, Bucky didn’t know, but it was there. 

***

After meeting Steve Rogers at the grocery store in his pajamas, it was inevitable that Bucky Barnes met Sam Wilson in a similarly ridiculous way. Luckily, though, he wasn’t in pajamas this time. 

He was, however, staring at a coffee stain on the shirt of another man and clutching a now-empty cup. He had turned around, texting Steve, and bumped directly into a stranger, spilling his coffee like a character in a rom com. 

Without looking up, Bucky immediately started mopping at the guy’s shirt with a napkin and giving apologies. Eventually, the guy grabbed Bucky’s wrist to get him to stop and Bucky finally got a look at the guy’s face. 

And the world exploded into color. Again. 

“You… you’re my soulmate,” the guy said. He was staring at Bucky in wonder, still holding his wrist, before glancing around and immediately switching to surprise. “Why can’t I see everything?”

It was at that moment that Bucky realized that he could see a full rainbow. Feeling like a surprised pikachu, he gently took his wrist back so he could hold out a hand. 

“Bucky Barnes,” he said.

“Sam Wilson,” the other man--Sam, apparently--said. “Are you seeing this too?”

“Not anymore,” Bucky said. “What did you say you see, again?”

Sam looked around to confirm before answering “yellow, orange, and red.”

“When I met Steve, I only saw red, blue, and purple,” Bucky said, seemingly to himself.

“Who’s Steve?” Sam asked. Bucky finally realised that this must be extremely confusing for Sam and tried to explain a little.

“My soulmate,” Bucky said, fully aware that he wasn’t really helping. “Wait, just, let me call him.” He stepped down the sidewalk and pulled his phone out of his pocket. 

He quickly explained what was happening to a very confused Steve, and made plans to meet in a few minutes. After confirming that Sam wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere, they started walking, Sam asking questions all the way.

***

Steve was anxiously waiting for them when they walked up. His jaw dropped when his eyes met Sam’s, with Sam equally, if not even more, surprised. They were both looking around, suddenly seeing everything in the same rainbow Bucky was looking at. 

“Bucky?” Steve started.

“I see it too,” Bucky said. He held Steve’s hand tight and introduced him to Sam. 

“Why aren’t you freaking out?” Sam asked Bucky. He was weirdly calm and it was starting to be a little unnerving.

“This whole thing as been so weird that I’m just like ‘this might as well happen,’ you know?” Bucky responded, shrugging. “I might freak out about it later; we’ll see.”

“So you guys are soulmates,” Sam said and waited for a confirmation. “Then what’s going on with me?”

“I could be wrong, but it looks like we’re all soulmates,” Steve said. “I’ve never heard of that happening before, but I don’t see why it would be impossible.”

“And you didn’t talk to anyone about missing a whole third of the color spectrum?” Sam asked, not unreasonably.

“We didn’t want anyone to think that there was something wrong with us,” Bucky said.

“We were happy anyway, and telling someone might have messed that up,” Steve finished. He squeezed Bucky’s hand, making him smile. 

“This is…” Sam looked around, searching for the right words. “A lot.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Steve said. “Can we buy you lunch? I’d love to talk about this.”

***

What started out as a quick meeting turned into a four hour conversation where they learned as much as they could about the others. It was pretty clear that Sam fit right in, and they soon forgot about the way they all met. It was like Sam had always been there.

***

“Steve, I swear I’ll shred all of your socks,” Bucky said.

“Oh, come on,” Steve started.

Sam cut him off. “No, he’s right.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Bucky said.

“Wait, I wasn’t finished,” Sam said. “He’s right that it wasn’t  _ your _ turn. It’s mine.”

Steve shook his head but apparently decided not to argue. Sam and Bucky continued bickering, and none of it was new. It was the same argument they had nearly every time they all went somewhere together. 

After a minute, Sam finally gave up the argument and let Bucky win. Bucky, as usual, very ungraciously accepted his victory with a cheer and a kiss on the cheek.

Having finally solved the problem, they left their house--Sam had moved in with Steve and Bucky about six months after they met--with Bucky happily holding the hands of both Sam and Steve, clearly the superior spot and one that they argued over constantly. 

It wasn’t even a big day, just a normal tuesday on their way to the store, but they went through this routine every time. Bucky loved it. He loved the feeling of being wanted, of being loved. The day they stopped arguing about who got to walk in the middle of the group was the day his world ended. 

Clearly, today was not that day. Today, they’re happy and loved and together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so this took a lot longer to finish than I was expecting, and I'm really sorry about that. I hope that this is good, though. thank you so much to everyone who stayed to read the ending, and to everyone who's reading this later. 
> 
> if you want, you can come find me on tumblr [here](https://lokiinlove.tumblr.com/) and, idk, send me an ask or yell at me to go write or something


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